LINGUISTIC AKEAS IN EUROPE— DOMINIAN. 427 



Great Russians. Traces of Finnish intermixture can still be de- 

 tected among them, in spite of the process of Slavicization which 

 they have undergone. The Poles of Galicia, on the other hand, like 

 the Ruthenians and Little Russians, reveal crossing of autochthon- 

 ous populations with Asiatic and Mongoloid invaders of Europe.^ 



The southeastern extremity of the language attains the sources 

 of the Moravka, an affluent of the Ostrawica. In this district the 

 line of demarcation between Ruthenians and Poles passes through 

 Tarnograd and along the San Valley. Its southern extension 

 skirts the foothills through Rymanow, Dukla, Zmigrad, Gorlica, 

 and Gribow.^ Thence to Jablunka it merges with the political 

 boundary. 



In its western section the physical boundary coincides for all 

 practical purposes with the ethnographic line of division. The 

 Polish-speaking Gorales mountaineers have, never aspired to cross 

 the divide of the Beskid Mountains. The result is that the gentler 

 slopes of the southern side are peopled altogether by Slovaks, while 

 habit and custom have prevented the Podhalians or Polish shepherds 

 inhabiting the high valley of the Tatra from leading their flocks to 

 the southern grazing slopes which form part of the Hungarian 

 domain.^ 



Changes in the aspect of the land resulting from human activity 

 provide an easily observable boundary between the territory in- 

 habited by Poles and that occupied by Ruthenians. The first, 

 proceeding from the Vistula lowland, are now scattered over a 

 territory in which deforestation and large areas of tilled soil be- 

 speak prolonged human occupancy of the land. The latter, coming 

 from the Pontic steppes, reached the Carpathian slopes much later 

 than their western neighbors. Consequentl}^, only 20 per cent of the 

 surface of the western Carpathians is now available as prairie and 

 pasture land, whereas the percentage of grazing land in the eastern 



1 Southern Poland was overrun by Mongolians during their third invasion of Europe. 

 The Asiatics were attacked near Szydlow on March 18, 1241, by an army of Polish noble- 

 men recruited from Sandomir and Cracow. The defeat of the Christians enabled the in- 

 vaders to plunder the latter city, besides opening the way for incursions farther north in 

 the course of which they penetrated into Silesia by way of Ratibor and marched toward 

 Breslau. Near Liegnitz an army of 30,000 Europeans was defeated again on Apr. 9 of 

 the same year. Thes§ disasters were followed by a westerly spread of the Tatar scourge. 

 Traces of its passage can still be detected among Poles. 



- The Poles constitute the majority in the population of many cities in eastern or Rus- 

 sian Galicia. In Niederle's list Bobrka, Muszyna, Sanok, Lisko, Sambor, Peremysl, Rawa- 

 ruska, Belz, Zolkiew, Grodek, Ceshanow, Stryj, Kalusz, Stanislawoff. Kalomya, Tarnopol, 

 Husiatyn, Buczacz, Sokal, and Trembowla are credited with over 50 per cent Poles in their 

 population. On the other hand, the predominance of German in the cities of Biala, 

 Sczerzec, Dolina, Bolechow, Nadworna, Kossew, Kuty, Zablotow, and BrOdy is attributed 

 by the same authority to the Jewish element present. L. Niederle, La Race Slave, Alcan, 

 Paris, 1911. A digest in English of his conclusions will be found in Ann. Rep. Smiths. 

 Inst., 1910, Washington, 1911, pp. 599-612. 



3 E. Reclus. Geogr. Univ., vol. 3, Europe Centrale. Ilachette, Paris, 1878, p. 396. 



